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Naturalists of the Frontier. By Samuel Wood Geiser. Second edi-tion, revised and enlarged. Dallas (University Press in Dal-las), 1948. Pp. 296. One illustration, maps, appendixes, andindex. $5.oo.Samuel Wood Geiser's drive and enthusiasm permeated thefirst edition of his Naturalists of the Frontier, issued in 1937. Itwas a book about scientists on the Texas frontier in "the heroicage of American bird life," in a time when the Southwest wasa botanist's ideal laboratory. Many of these dedicated men, ex-pecting "little reward beyond the joys of the day's work and theconsciousness that they had wrought well for science," could befavorably compared to Methodist circuit riders in their selflessdevotion to the scientific ideal that was becoming almost a reli-gion for a few mid-nineteenth century Americans. For me, Geisermade his subjects literally come alive as he sent Berlandier, Roe-mer, Lincecum, and the rest of that notable crew stalking theirscientific prey. Some of the writing reaches a sufficient intensityof performance to glow with its own heat.The research task involved in Geiser's undertaking was one ofunusual difficulty. While the charlatan phrenologists and thepolitician leaders of the Texas Philosophical Society, with theirbombastic orations about "boundless research," had hogged themeager scientific limelight in the Republic of Texas, some ofthese genuine scientists had worked in a dim background. Theirreports and letters had gone to their scientific colleagues in theEast and in Europe. Hence Geiser had to find many of theirrecords in distant places-in Scotland, Mexico, and Sweden, atHarvard and in scattered courthouses, and in a thousand obscurepublications. He deserved nothing but admiration for the wayhe stalked his prey. I know of no historian who worked his fieldmore exhaustively and scrupulously and in the face of more dis-couraging obstacles.I can further testify, from personal knowledge, that Naturalistsof the Frontier was written with a profound understanding ofthe social scene in which the central figures moved. The volumeclearly demonstrated that the frontier social environment brokescientists as well as made them.Not content with the widespread acclamation that greeted his